Oh Jack - Part 2

[Odonadon]

I think everyone's gonna enjoy this article:

http://www.gamesindustry....ontent_page.php?aid=12259

Florida attorney and anti-videogame campaigner Jack Thompson has come under fire from America's National Institute on Media and the Family for claiming to have the support of the group in his regular open letters.

The decision of the group to distance itself from the attorney and his headline-grabbing tactics comes despite the fact that like Thompson, the institute is a vocal critic of games such as Manhunt and 25 to Life for their violent content.

The institute's founder, Dr David Walsh, wrote an open letter to Thompson, a copy of which was obtained by US website Game Politics. The letter was also sent to the likes of senator Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates and Doug Lowenstein of the ESA - the same Doug Lowenstein whom Thompson has previously compared to Hitler.

It begins with Dr Walsh explaining that he established the institute ten years ago "to engage in research and education about the effects of media on children's health and development." Walsh writes that one of the areas of most concern to the institute is the effects of violent media.

"I know that you share that common concern and I am well aware that you have frequently cited me and our organisation as a source of scientific information," Walsh continues.

"However, over the past few months, I and members of my board have a growing concern that your use of our name, without our permission, has had a negative influence as we try to educate the public on this important issue.

"Your commentary has included extreme hyperbole and your tactics have included personally attacking individuals for whom I have a great deal of respect... Some of the people that you have publicly criticised are not only people of integrity, but are people who have worked to improve the lives of children."

Walsh goes on to note that Thompson has been using his name in correspondence even though they have no formal relationship, creating the impression "That we condone these tactics. We do not.

"The result is that our position and reputation as a research based, non-partisan, solution-focused organisation has been jeopardised.

"Consequently, I ask that you cease using the institute's or my name in any way that would give the impression that we support your efforts." Walsh also requests that Thompson remove the link to the institute's website from his own site.

Walsh's letter comes just days after Thompson issued an open letter to the videogames industry in which he outlined his idea for a game where the CEO of fictional company Take This, Paula Eibel, is murdered along with her husband and children. Should any developer agree to make the game, Thompson will donate $10,000 to the charity of choice of Paul Eibeler, the CEO of Take Two.

Mike Krahulik, the artist behind popular gaming culture comic Penny-Arcade and a founder of the hugely successful Child's Play charity, contacted Thompson after he made this offer to point out that Child's Play has raised over half a million dollars for children's hospitals around the USA since its inception.

Commenting on Penny-Arcade.com, Krahulik reports that Thompson proceeded to call him directly - keen, no doubt, to congratulate such a successful fellow organiser of videogaming-related charity efforts.

Or perhaps not. "Jack actually just called and screamed at me for a couple minutes," Krahulik said. "He said if I email him again I will 'regret it'. What a violent man."

OD

[den68]

it would appear this Jack fellow is quite out of control and perhaps mad. nice article.

[Izret101]

Yea i don't think many people are going to continue listening to him if any have.
He does sound rather insane.

I bet he played dungeons and dragons when he was growing up.
Or read comics books. Or listened to rock and roll.
Seeing as they both use to be sited for driving kids to commit murders, suicide, use drugs, etc.

[Izret101]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/pennyarcade/gamer/7a15/
I am buying a shirt when i get a job.


or so i hope

[NDiddy]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/pennyarcade/gamer/7a15/
I am buying a shirt when i get a job.


or so i hope

maybe we can get a bulk order deal lol.

[Lord Nepenthean]

This story gets even better.  Check out Thompson's response.  It is laughable (bolding added by yours truly to highlight my favorite parts):

_____________________________________________________________________
"Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2005 6:01 PM
Subject: Dave Walsh and Jack Thompson

Dave, I received your letter today. A couple of clarifications, if I'm allowed to do that.

I have never given the impression that you are anything other than a remarkably talented and insightful professional who has been sounding the alarm for many years about the dangers of adult entertainment when consumed by kids. I started doing that in 1987. Not sure as to the precise date you started, but it has been a long time.

I have never said to anyone that you and I are in league with one another. I did recommend that 60 Minutes and Reader's Digest talk to you about the Alabama wrongful death case. I think it is fair to say you would not have been on those programs if I had not recommended you. I was happen to do it. As you recall, I got you the video gamer to sit with in Tuscaloosa to show the violent content of GTA: Vice City. I was happy to do it.

You will also recall that it was I that urged you to go forward on the "Hot Coffee mod" scandal. You repeatedly called me for legal advice and I freely gave it. As you know, I prepped Senator Clinton, per her staff's request, before she had her splendid "Hot Coffee" news conference. As you will recall, you called me to let me know you were on your way to Washington to do that press conference with her. I was happy for you.

I certainly did, however, lose respect for Senator Clinton when she decided, after that, to attend a fundraiser thrown for her by the video game industry and by ESA's Doug Lowenstein. To me, that was a sell-out for campaign cash. It may be that because you raise money for your organization you understand the needs of fundraising, but to take money from the ESA is to take blood money. The parents I represented in Paducah would not understand, nor do I. I note you send Doug Lowenstein, your letter to me. That is quite odd, given the things you have said to me about him in the past.

I am wondering just who, David, these people are whom I have criticized "who have worked to improve the lives of children." Do you have in mind the folks at Best Buy, one of whom you copied with your letter? I know you get money from people connected with these folks, David, but you do know that Best Buy is presently pre-selling, to adults and to children, the Columbine simulator game, Bully? You do know that, right, David? Of course you do. I told you Best Buy was doing that. So is the Target Corporation, whose Chairman Bob Ulrich you copy with your letter. I am wondering, David, what these men have to do to get on your bad side? Do they actually have to do the physical bullying of kids, as selling a bullying rehearsal trainer to kids is okay?

Finally, Dave, I understand that your letter is more about protecting your funding sources than criticizing me, so I understand what you felt you had to do. But there is something else here. Your role in this fight is indispensable - or I should say has been, as you maybe have decided to go a different route now - and I applaud you for what you have done.

But the thing that makes you feel uncomfortable with me is no so much that I have gone too far but that you have not gone far enough. The time for hand-wringing and trying to "persuade" the bad guys to stop being bad was over quite sometime ago. Now I understand the mindset of the upper Midwest, especially in the Twin Cities. Everybody likes to get along, assume that everyone "means well," and things will all just work out for the best in the end.

I know, and you know, if you are being honest, that that is not how the world works. Evil people sometimes have to be stopped, or at least their evil has to be stopped. You can cite all the studies and all the findings and keep giving your video game report card to Congress, and it will not matter unless somebody gets into the trenches and stops these people. While you have been giving report cards on a bunch of sociopaths, the violent games have been getting more violent.

Senator Lieberman, bless his heart, wants with Senator Clinton to fund a study with taxpayer dollars to find out if violence in entertainment really makes kids violent. That was decided years ago. It is a dodge from having to do something about the violence. The entire ESRB rating system is a joke. It is a tool for marketing violence to kids. It does not stop the sale of violence to kids. You know that. It would be better if we had no system, and then parents would not have been fooled for more than a decade into thinking that the system was actually protecting their kids.

Liberals, like you, love to label things and then think that the labeling has accomplished something. If that had been the case, then Churchill's calling Hitler a Nazi would have ended the war. But no, people like me had to get into the trenches and stop the Nazis. And there were always those tut-tutting back home about what a nasty business it is to stop the bad people, and can't we all just "get along."

Actually, Dave, and this is the point: We can't just all get along. You want to criticize retailers like Best Buy, while at the same time taking their money. That is what prompts your letter to me decrying my tactics and my hyperbole and so forth.

I have been dismayed by your being on both sides of the fence, because it undercuts your credibility.

Dave, it is laughable, it is absurd, that you have copied your email to Bill Gates, of all people. This is a guy whose Halo trained Malvo to kill in D.C. This is a guy who now has put all the Grand Theft Auto games on his XBox. This is a man who is going to release Bully when the coast is clear in the spring.

Gates is a man who wants to be on both sides of a fence. Sound familiar?

Regards, Jack Thompson"
______________________________________________

Thanks go to GAF: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=5661

Thompson sent a second letter which can also be viewed at the above link.

[Lord Nepenthean]

But wait -- there's more!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thompson also wrote to former RF Generation mascot Joe Lieberman (bold once again added by me to emphasize favorite parts):

_________________________________________________________

Dear Senator Lieberman:

I received late last Thursday a remarkably false and hurtful letter from someone who is a friend of yours and who used to be a friend of mine, Dr. David Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family. Two people who got Walsh's letter are you and Doug Lowenstein of the ESA. Therein is the explanation of why it was really sent.

I have over the years repeatedly told Dr. Walsh of my admiration for his knowledge as to the harm caused by mature video games sold to minors. I have done nothing for years but praise him to others, especially those in the media. Dr. Walsh has gotten himself on plenty of prominent news shows about this issue on his own, but I got him on 60 Minutes this year and in Reader's Digest. Dave indicated that he was pleased that I did. Neither of us seeks the publicity for its own sake. We both care about the message. It will save lives.

The three of us, obviously, have shared this same concern about adult games sold to kids for a very long time. When you meet the bereaved families of these victims, they change your life forever, as did the families in Paducah whom I represented. Critics of the three of us don't understand our concern. They haven't met the victims.

The very day I sent Dave a draft of an affidavit for him to sign for our wrongful death case in Alabama, Dave, instead of calling me wrote this letter saying that I needed to stop suggesting publicly and otherwise that he endorses what I do. I have NEVER suggested such a thing, ever. Dave and I have joked about how he is the "good cop" on this issue, and I am the "bad cop."

But if Dave had a problem with my "tactics," I believe you and I both know, as people of faith, that the Biblical principle is that you go privately to the person with whom you have a disagreement and express the concern. Dave NEVER did that. Why?

You see, Senator, I am presently suing Best Buy and Target over Take-Two's planned release of Bully, a Columbine simulator in which you can bludgeon your classmates and teachers. I was on ABC World News Tonight and CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight about Bully and my lawsuit against these retailers. The stakes here are very high.

Dave's organization is funded by Target and Best Buy. Elliot Kaplan is a lawyer who defended Best Buy the last time I sued it successfully, and it is his foundation that, in Kaplan's words "has given millions of dollars to Dave Walsh." Kaplan is a director on the Board of Best Buy. You and I both learned to "follow the money" a long time ago. It can explain why friends write letters that have absolutely no basis in fact but which help those who fund them. Why else would Dave tell me publicly to stop doing something he could have asked me to do privately and which I have never done?

Dave copied you with that letter. He did that because he knew of my relationship with your office, how I have sat with your people the day we were both interviewed for Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat documentary that is coming out this fall. I am deeply appreciative of your Chief of Staff's tremendous concern and interest in this issue. I have a lovely letter from you thanking me for my abiding involvement in this issue. Nobody here is saying you endorse my methods. You appreciate my concern.

Why did Dave Walsh send his letter to Doug Lowenstein - to make sure that it would be spread all over the world. That is precisely what has happened. You should hear the things Dave has said to me about Doug, about his prevarications. I think Doug is a liar. Dave is too nice a guy to say so publicly, but I am not. Doug Lowenstein, in my opinion, is personally responsible for a number of deaths. He is paid well to spin like the worst propagandists in history. I don't need to tell you the harm that propagandists can cause, the lives they can cost. The Third Reich was founded upon propaganda as surely as it was founded upon armaments. When Doug Lowenstein says the industry wants kids not to buy these games, he is lying. When he says there is no proof that these games hurt kids, he is lying. Dave would not say so. I say so. I'm not nice, and I don't pretend to be.

The reason Dave sent that letter is the same reason the Philadelphia law firm of Blank Rome has embarked on character assassination of me in our case in Alabama arising out of Take-Two's GTA games. Blank Rome has as one of its partners Barbara Comstock, the head of "opposition research" at the RNC. Blank Rome has unethically used her RNC techniques on me because they know they can't win this case, covered on 60 Minutes and in Reader's Digest on the merits, so they have cranked up their Swift Boat Vets approach and used it on me, with no facts to back them up. As Twain said, "A lie is half way around the world before the truth puts on its shoes." Dave Walsh's money people took a page out of the Blank Rome/RNC playbook. I am getting used to it. All it has accomplished is make me more determined to destroy the Take-Two's of the world, by God's grace.

Dave Walsh is a very nice man who blew this one. I happen to think there is room in the world for Dave's approach on games, but I also think somebody has to be willing to get in the trenches and slug it out with sociopaths. Take-Two's Mr. Houser proves in today's New York Times he is just such a sociopath.

With all respect, Dave's Annual Video Game Report Card has not slowed down Take-Two, has it? I have used lawsuits in the past to accomplish some very good things. I made enemies in the process. I am proud to count Doug Lowenstein as one of them.

I wish you all of God's best. I wish people like Take-Two all of Satan's worst. Dave Walsh would not say that, and that is part of his charm. Some of us were not called to be charming. I want to win this thing, not for my sake, but because lives are at stake.

That is what makes what Dave did so hurtful. Instead of calling me up and talking to me man to man, he wrote a letter to Doug Lowenstein.

Blessings, Jack Thompson

____________________________________________

EDIT: I forgot to post the link to where I got this: http://www.gamepolitics.com/

[Sauza12]

This brought a smile to my face.

"WWWAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!  Dave doesn't want to be my friend anymore!  WWWWWAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

[Tynstar]

I hope this guy dies soon.

[TraderJake]

The Bible doesn't promote killing innocent people," Thompson said. "Grand Theft Auto does. Islam does. Islam promotes the killing of innocent people. The Quran requires the infidel, whether Jew or Christian, to be killed. … That's a core essence of the religion. … Muhammad was a pirate who killed infidels and who advocated the killing of infidels. Not a nice guy. Osama bin Laden is in keeping with his fine tradition.

Wow, what a horrible person. And to think that he is from Ohio, and possibly even Cincinnati.

I've said this many places before, and here I say it again:

Games don't kill people. People kill people.

Even if something is suggestive in nature, a sane individual still makes a conscious decision to point that gun or flaunt the knife, and is ultimately responsible for his actions. Could an architect blame the Sims for allowing him to design a structurally impossible building in the game, yet in real life the house collapses? I really doubt it. Would an urban planner blame his city's poor network on SimCity because that game modeled it perfectly? I think not.

Games are Games, no matter how graphic the game may be. Game's aren't a viable scapegoat for professionals, so why should it be any different for violent offenders? Actions take personal responsibilty, and to try to state otherwise undermines the very fabric of civilization.

[Izret101]

I like him now |D
If anythign he is detracting from his own point now.
He might have had some sway over the last few years but lately it just seems like more and more people have been and will be distancing themselves from him because he is insane.

[Hydrobond]

Don't know if this was posted yet...

Taken from www.fark.com:
Anti-violence video-game lawyer Jack Thompson offers $10,000 to charity if a game is made out of one of his ideas, rescinds offer when someone actually does it. But that's okay, because Penny Arcade donated the cash for him. In his name

http://www.penny-arcade.c....php?date=2005-10-17#2834

added:
http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000743063662/

[Zimbacca]

At least the charity got the money.

[yap]

http://yro.slashdot.org/y....shtml?tid=153&tid=17

The title of that story is "Jack Thompson Calls the Cops on Penny Arcade".

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

I think this is making me wnat to kill someone more than any game ever has.